


Spiced Memories

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Physcial abuse, References to Rape/Non-Con, mental manipulation, psychological abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 23:50:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16169288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Alex confronts Roger about what happened after his Ordeal.





	Spiced Memories

**Author's Note:**

> This story is fraught with unhealthy and potentially triggering relationship dynamics so proceed with caution. The premise of this story is somewhat based on my earlier work "Fool's Gold" but works independently and doesn't require reading that one for understanding.

Spiced Memories

“I didn’t poison it.” Roger sniffed at the sight of Alex swirling his goblet of wine–mulled with the Carthaki spices of cinnamon and ginger–to better waft the scent to his nose. 

“I don’t believe you did, Your Grace.” Alex wasn’t smelling for poisons. He was trying to smell whatever Roger had slipped into the potion the duke had foisted upon him after his Ordeal that had made him so pliant when Roger stripped him of his gossamer garments and stunned him so he couldn’t scream when Roger penetrated him. The draft that had filled his mind with such a fog that at first he had blamed his soreness and bleeding on his Ordeal until he realized that none of his friends minced around as stiffly as he did. 

Only then had be been able to acknowledge how a man he had trusted and served without question had violated him. The burning shame he felt at what he had allowed to happen to him without a fight had made him avoid Roger’s first charming invitations and then persistent demands that he come visit his former knightmaster for drinks and scintillating conversation. It had taken Roger seizing his elbow tightly enough to bruise in the corridor–the way he had when Alex, as a squire, had said the wrong thing, often without even being aware of it–and refusing to release it until Alex, teeth gritted in a smile to hide the pain that even after he was a knight he couldn’t bear to admit, agreed to accompany him back to his quarters for a quick goblet of mulled wine. 

Still wanting to be certain that no spices stronger than ginger and cinnamon have found their way into his chalice, he lifted it and proposed a toast Roger couldn’t refuse. “To my fine former knightmaster.” 

Alex waited until Roger had sipped to swallow some of his own mulled wine. Cinnamon and ginger tingled his tongue as Roger raised his goblet in a return salute. “To my once faithful squire.” Alex wondered if he was being subtly reprimanded for the disloyalty of ignoring his former knightmaster’s invitations before Roger’s fingers snaking beneath the sleeves of Alex’s shirt, tracing the swelling bruises he had created in the hallway, removed all doubt that he was being punished. “It grieves me that you are no longer so faithful, Alexander.” 

“You did”–Alex, still unable to voice what Roger did to him after his Ordeal, choked on his accusation when he wanted to sound strong–“things to me after my Ordeal that made me bleed.” 

“Do you”–Roger’s thumb pressed into a bruise, and Alex had to stifle a sharp gasp–“imagine that was the first time I did such things to you?” 

Alex, about to yank his arm out of Roger’s grip even at the risk of showering himself in wine, gaped at the duke. Suddenly he felt sick with questions about what happened in the blanks of his memory when he gazed into the shimmering jewels of Roger’s necklace too long, and abruptly he understood that Roger wasn’t being an indulgent knightmaster when he offered Alex glasses of wine that brought him brief, blissful oblivion from the pressures he placed on himself. 

“You don’t have to answer. I can see what you would say written on your face.” Roger chuckled, stroking at bruises he had brought to Alex’s skin. “Your naivety is truly charming, dear Alex, but, no, after your Ordeal wasn’t the first time I did such things to you. It was merely the first time I allowed you to remember the things I did to you.” 

“Why?” Alex’s mind was so muddled that he worried Roger had managed to sneak something nefarious into his goblet after all. Perhaps Roger carried a remedy up his sleeve for whatever he had slipped into Alex’s wine. 

“I thought you might treasure the memory.” Roger tugged Alex toward him, and Alex dizzied at the smell of alcohol mingling with spices on Roger’s breath. “If the memory troubles you, I can remove it with a touch of magic, and in the future, I can go back to making certain that you forget everything I do to you if that’s what you’d prefer.” 

“I don’t want to forget.” Alex was too numb to comprehend how the conversation had shifted to him only having a choice between remembering and forgetting what Roger inflicted upon him. 

“Then remember this for the rest of your life.” Roger planted a kiss–tasting of wine, cinnamon, and ginger–on Alex’s lips that seared into his memory more than the bleeding between his thighs after his Ordeal.


End file.
